A group of House Democrats released a letter Monday vowing to vote against Nancy Pelosi in the race for House speaker -- the first major, public warning shot from detractors of the California Democrat as they try to kneecap the longtime leader's bid for speaker and their most aggressive move yet.

Joyful Heart Foundation This Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we announced a new campaign to share domestic violence survivors’ stories of healing and support. Using the hashtag #SupportAfterDV, we invited survivors in our community to share the ways they were best supported after their experiences on social media or through our anonymous online survey.Our IssuesDomestic Violence

Joyful Heart Foundation It can be difficult for any person experiencing sexual and domestic violence to seek support and find the resources they need. For some Latin@ survivors, cultural and language barriers can add to these challenges. One in three Latin@ women has experienced physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. And 50% […]

Joyful Heart Foundation Each October, we join hundreds of other organizations to recognize Domestic Violence Awareness Month. DVAM is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of these issues, share resources, and most importantly, support survivors.Our ProgramsHealingOur IssuesDomestic Violence

Joyful Heart Foundation At Joyful Heart, we know wellness can take many forms, especially for survivors and their loved ones. Tending to your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are all part of the healing journey. This year we’re joining other organizations to recognize September 26 as National Women’s Health and Fitness Day, an annual […]

Anonymous Editor’s note: A survivor’s decision to seek help or report a rape is a personal choice that belongs only to the survivor. Survivors’ bravery and credibility are not dependent on whether they choose to report an assault to authorities or not. All survivors are courageous; their reasons to share their experiences or keep it […]

This Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we announced a new campaign to share domestic violence survivors’ stories of healing and support. Using the hashtag #SupportAfterDV, we invited survivors in our community to share the ways they were best supported after their experiences on social media or through our anonymous online survey.We were moved by the hundreds […]

It can be difficult for any person experiencing sexual and domestic violence to seek support and find the resources they need. For some Latin@ survivors, cultural and language barriers can add to these challenges. One in three Latin@ women has experienced physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. And 50% of survivors never […]

Each October, we join hundreds of other organizations to recognize Domestic Violence Awareness Month. DVAM is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of these issues, share resources, and most importantly, support survivors.Domestic violence is widespread and affects people from all walks of life; one in four women and one in seven men have suffered severe […]

At Joyful Heart, we know wellness can take many forms, especially for survivors and their loved ones. Tending to your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are all part of the healing journey. This year we’re joining other organizations to recognize September 26 as National Women’s Health and Fitness Day, an annual event for women […]

In the age of smartphones and smart homes, using technology to harass and abuse has become increasingly common.Digital abuse, or the use of technology to harass or intimidate someone, can take many forms. It can occur at any stage of a relationship and to people of all ages, though it is especially common among teens […]

At Joyful Heart, we know wellness can take many forms, especially for survivors and their loved ones. Tending to your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are all part of the healing journey. This year we’re joining other organizations to recognize September 26 as National Women’s Health and Fitness Day, an annual event for women […]

Jennifer Fox is an internationally acclaimed producer, director, writer, and camerawoman. The Tale is Fox’s first fiction feature film, which she wrote, directed, and produced. The HBO film is based on Fox’s own life story as the main character, portrayed by Emmy award-winning actress Laura Dern, re-examines her first sexual relationship and the stories we […]

Nancy Nesbitt is the parent representative on the Connecticut Governor’s Task Force on Justice for Abused Children. She applies her perspective and experiences as a mother of children who were sexually abused at a young age to her work. The task force serves to coordinate agencies in the investigation, intervention, and prosecution of child sexual […]

NPR called it the “assault epidemic no one talks about.” Each year, people with disabilities—physical, mental, intellectual, and others—face disproportionate rates of sexual and domestic violence. And too often, they do not receive the support they need.As many as 1 in 2 disabled women have experienced domestic violence—twice the rate of non-disabled women. People with […]

Joyful Heart’s website now offers Spanish-language resources to make our educational materials about sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse accessible to those who speak Spanish, including the more than 40 million Spanish speakers in the United States.One in three Hispanic women has experienced physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime, and one […]

Healing from trauma looks different for every survivor. At Joyful Heart, our healing programs are based on honoring each survivor’s journey.We recently expanded the core of this work as participants in Blue Shield Foundation of California’s Learning Circle Project, a collaborative learning experience with seven other leading organizations serving domestic violence survivors. The learning circle’s […]

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and National Child Abuse Prevention Month. For many of us, it will be marked by awareness-raising efforts, days of remembrance and calls to action. It will be a month, though, unchanged by the staggering facts:Every two minutes in the United States, someone is sexually assaulted.One in five women and […]

Big news. This year, We are competing in this year's LA2050 Challenge to win $100,000 to support our holistic healing programs that help survivors heal from sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.With your support, we will evaluate and document our retreat model and create a replication plan for agencies in Los Angeles and beyond […]

September 21, 2018Associated PressAssociated Press NEW YORK — Mariska Hargitay thinks Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has played a huge role in educating people on sexual violence, but believes there is still a lot of work to do.The star of the TV drama spoke as the NBC show celebrated its 20th season Thursday at […]

September 21, 2018NBC Bay AreaLiz Lane Some of the most vocal proponents of the #MeToo movement and droves of other women have come to the defense of Christine Blasey Ford after President Donald Trump questioned her credibility and wondered why she didn’t report her sexual assault at the time she said it happened.In a slew […]

August 30, 2018Times of San DiegoKen Stone In late April, at the height of her successful campaign for district attorney, interim DA Summer Stephan announced she would spend $1 million to test 1,000 rape kits.By the end of August, only 200 kits will have been tested by Bode Cellmark Forensics, a private lab in Virginia, […]

August 29, 2018SF WeeklyIda Mojadad Through public records requests, End the Backlog estimates that more than 13,000 kits are sitting untested on the shelves of California law enforcement—but it still won’t have a complete number unless jurisdictions are mandated to have them. Read the original versionTags: Rape Kitsuntested rape kitsCalifornia

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Not Only Is it Possible To Rise, It’s Possible To Fly

Hi friends. Sorry. This isn’t Shauna. This is her friend, Michelle. You don’t know me, but I know you all, and more importantly, I know Shauna. When I first met her, many years ago, I was fresh out of college, working night shifts in an Emergency Room, answering phones and filing paperwork. It was an eye opening experience. I saw a slice of the world that few have ever seen. I saw people come in that were in pain, were in a panic, were seeking attention, or drugs or worse. I held the hands of people that were losing loved ones, got a fresh cup of coffee for a soon-to-be-widow, wrapped a blanket around a shaking parent that just lost a child. I’ve watched physicians make difficult choices, nurses hold it until they nearly peed themselves, janitors clean more blood than you could imagine was inside a person. To date, this was the best job I ever had.

My guess is that you suspect that Shauna was a patient there, after a horrible night of violence and abuse. You’d be mistaken. She and I shared a desk, a little spot of peace in a sea of uncertainty. In the time I knew her, she was unwaveringly kind, poised, but mostly quiet. In the way I know her now, it’s so weird to call her quiet. You couldn’t swear in front of her, which was a big fucking problem for me. She didn’t drink, which I just couldn’t possibly fathom. People would ask her personal questions about her life, and I would hear her shut them down. “How are your roommates?” “Seeing anyone?” “What did you do this weekend?” were all considered personal questions. I quickly learned that she didn’t want to talk about her life, and I was okay with that. Most of our interactions consisted of making fun of our coworkers, or talking about what weird meal I had made myself for dinner. There was a lot of food and real estate porn. Shauna helped me internet shop for the condo I eventually bought, talked me through the petty arguments I had with my then boyfriend, and let me complain about my mother. I think truly our friendship began from a mutual love of Pitbulls.

In the time we worked together, Shauna’s mother became very ill. She lived in the city, but my home was in the neighboring suburb. Like any sensible city girl, she didn’t have a car, so I offered to drive her there. With the kindness she had shown me, it was a no-brainer.

Through bits and pieces of the conversations we had, I began to put together a concerning image of her life. Here she had this mother that she loved dearly and loved her the same in return, but Shauna was living with people that controlled her life. I was sad for her, and I felt so helpless to make it any better. I just promised I would drive her to her mom whenever she wanted, even though one time I left her on the side of the highway to be picked up by Mom because I was going to miss an exam.

When I left that job, Shauna was one of the very few people with whom I kept in touch. It was probably two years before we saw each other again. When we got together, she was this entirely different person. The first thing she said to me was “Let’s get a fucking drink”.

We went out to a bar, a place I couldn’t have pictured her in a thousand years. She told me about the amazing man that she was dating, the scum bags she had dated and the good news that she had moved back home with Mom. That was probably my favorite part.

It was like I was meeting someone entirely new, but had known my life for years. At the first opportunity, I had her over to the condo she and I drooled over at 3 AM nightly after I made an offer on it. She met my husband I had squabbled with when we were dating, and kissed the Pitbull we adopted shortly after I was married. Shauna became a weekly fixture at my house, sometimes helping me, posing as a fake client, other times just to drink and laugh. Eventually, after too many glasses of wine, Shauna told me the story of her survivorship. I remember sitting there with my hand over my mouth the entire way through. I couldn’t believe someone I had loved so dearly lived through such hell. She seemed so nervous to tell me about her life, but she was so brave through it. She didn’t stop. It was like one breathless story, breathless for both of us, though I was silent. There were hugs. There were tears.

The next time we got together, we were drinking wine. We drank some more, and I told her how her story had taken root in my bones. I told her that her life, her story was too important not to share, that there was so much wealth and power in her experience, and that by holding it in, she was depriving the world and a desperate community of a truth for which they so yearned. We drank some more, and we started talking about what mediums it would be most appropriate to discuss, and I recommended blogging. We drank some more, and she wrote her first blog. She was nice enough to let me edit it, but truthfully, I just put in the details she was reluctant to write down. It has made me so proud to see how successful this blog has become, especially as I have had nothing to do with its content since the first few times she asked me to check out what she wrote.

Today, we were texting, and she was so sweet and thanked me for her success here. I told her, “I pushed you off a cliff. You learned how to fly.” This evening, she asked me for the first time in months to check out her blog post, and it was about what I had said to her this morning, about her flying. I was so flattered, but I thought how unfair it was to you, her readers, not to know the full story came to be. It’s once again that unwavering kindness of Shauna that forces her to want to credit those who help her with success. It felt as if she wanted to give me every word she had written, which I couldn’t edit. I see how much power and strength she has found in telling her story. I am so lucky to have witnessed this phoenix rise from her ashes. In closing, I want to leave her with the essence of the post she wanted to share with you all:

Not only is it possible to rise, it’s possible to fly.

Hey friends, Shauna here, The above context from my friend Michelle, literally brought tears to my eyes, when I write I always originally write in google docs, that way if I need Michelle we can both do edits from our own homes if need be, when I asked her for help tonight she had no problem doing so, then she had told me she was “working on something don’t look.” So I didn’t, but kept messaging her on Facebook asking if I could. Haha.

Below, is the context I had asked her to help me with – Aspire to Inspire Before You Expire.

“So in summing up the meaning of the phrase aspire to inspire before you expire, it simply says to have the desire to arouse and positively influence an individual into action so that they fulfill their innermost desires before they die and leave this planet. And it also applies to you – allowing inspiration to flow through you so that you too experience an inspired life. As always, the choice is yours! Be the inspiration!”

Earlier today, I was talking to my dear friend who is the one who got to me to finally start blogging back in September of 2015. She encourages me more than she knows. I had once again thanked her for doing so and her response was epic! “Hahaha, no I pushed you off a cliff, you learned to fly!”

I had been wanting to share my story of survivorship, as well as empower and inspire others, reach out to victims and give them hope for their future. I just could not take that first step. She told me that my life, my story was too important not to share, that there was so much wealth and power in my experience, and that by holding it in, I was depriving the world and a desperate community of a truth for which they so needed. She literally gave me the push I needed to turn my dreams into reality.

Aspire means to yearn for, have a strong desire for or to have hope.

Personally, my desire, my hopes, and my dreams are to help victims and survivors of domestic violence. That through writing and maybe one day even speaking to others, that I can empower and inspire other survivors to share their stories as well. That if we inspire one another than we can truly break the silence. That if we all take a stand, that if we all do something with our own experiences that we CAN stop domestic violence. If we can ensure that schools are really teaching our teenagers about teen dating violence, if we can reach these younger generations then there can be an end to domestic violence.

I have always said, if I can make a difference in just ONE person’s life, then I have been successful!

What are your aspirations? What inspires you? What do you desire and hope to accomplish while you are still here?

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4 thoughts on “Not Only Is it Possible To Rise, It’s Possible To Fly”

What inspires me is when I see people helping animals, whether they are big or small. They don’t do it for an extra buck. They do it out of love and respect for animals. Another thing that inspires me is when I hearing people learn how to sign. Not just the swear words (as so many do) but really learn how to sign. Nothing makes me smile harder than when I am having a conversation on the street or having problems at a checkout, and suddenly a stranger comes up to me and starts to sign with me (ASL) or the checkout chick signs (even if just fingerspelling) a way that solves the problem. These are two things that lift me up and leave me high on life itself. xx

I recommend http://www.ASLUniversity.com as the perfect place to learn, whether as a beginner or advanced. Dr Bill Vicars is Deaf and is a linguistics professor at Sacramento State University. When I lost my hearing completely, he stepped in and taught both my husband and I to sign in order to keep our marriage solid. He teaches ASL for FREE. And to this very day, he is a dear friend. xx